breath fogged in the cold morning air. How many mornings just like this had he ridden out at dawn to check on them?
It seemed inconceivable that he’d once felt more at ease on the back of his horse than he now did at a depth of a hundred feet.
The closer the house loomed, the more evident it became that the ranch and its occupants had fallen on hard times. His big sister, Peg—an ICU nurse who’d long since moved to Denver—was the only family he talked to. She’d told him that after his brother’s death, his father had for all practical purposes shut down. Cooper had offered to return then, but Peg reported having broached the topic with their dad only to find him not just unreceptive, but downright hostile.
And so Cooper had continued his exile.
He pulled onto the house’s dirt drive, holding his breath when passing the spot where basically, his life had ended. Sure, he’d worked hard and made a new family with his SEAL team, but it was his old one he mourned.
The one he’d literally and figuratively killed.
He put his truck in park, letting it idle for a minute before cutting the engine. He braced his forearms against the wheel, resting his chin atop them, staring at the house that in his mind’s eye had once been the most wondrous place on earth. Now the front porch gutter sagged and over a decade’s worth of summer sun had faded his mother’s favorite shade of yellow paint to dirty white. Weeds choked her flower garden, and the branch holding his childhood tire swing had broken.
A dozen memories knotted his throat—cruel reminders that this was no longer his home. Per his sister’s repeated requests, he’d help until his dad got back on his feet, but after that, Cooper would retreat to the haven the Navy had become.
Forcing a deep breath, he knew he could no longer put off the inevitable. From the sounds of it, his dad was in such bad shape, he wouldn’t even realize his son had stepped foot in the house. By the time he did, Cooper would’ve worked up his courage enough to face him.
Out of his ride, he grabbed his ditty bag from the truck bed, slinging it over his shoulder.
Feet leaden, heart heavier still, he crossed the mostly dirt yard to mount steps he’d last tread upon when he’d essentially been a boy. The Navy had honed him into a man, but confronting his past eroded his training like ocean waves ripping apart a fragile shore.
It all came rushing back.
That god-awful night when he’d done the unthinkable. His sister’s screams. His brother’s and father’s stoic stares. The funeral. The guilt that clung tight to this day.
“Cooper?”
He looked up to find his sister-in-law, his little brother’s high school sweetheart, clutching her tattered blue robe closed at the throat.
He removed his hat, pinning it to his chest. “Hey...”
“What’re you doing here? I thought— I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” She held open the front door. “Get in here before you catch your death of cold.”
He brushed past her, hyperaware of the light floral fragrance she’d worn since her sixteenth birthday when his brother had gifted it to her, declaring her to be the prettiest girl he knew. Millie was no longer pretty, but beautiful. Her hair a deep chestnut, and her haunted gaze as blue as a spring sky, despite dark circles shadowing her eyes. He couldn’t help but stare. Catching himself, hating that his face grew warm, he sharply looked away.
The contrast of the front room’s warmth to the outside chill caused him to shiver. He’d forgotten a real winter’s bite.
“I—I can’t believe you’re here.” She’d backed onto the sofa arm—the same sofa he used to catch her and Jim making out on. She fussed with her hair, looking at him, then away. “Peg tried calling so many times....”
“Sorry.” He set his ditty bag on the wood floor, then shrugged out of his Navy-issued pea jacket to hang it on the rack near the door. He’d have felt a damn sight better with his hat back on, but his mother had never allowed hats in the house, so he hung it alongside his coat. “I’ve been out of town.” Syria had been lovely this time of year. “Guess I should’ve called, but...”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Did she? Did she have a clue what it had been like for him to one day belong to a loving, complete family and the next to have accidentally committed an act so heinous, his own father never spoke to him again?
“You’re here now, and that’s what matters.”
“Yeah...” Unsure what to do with his hands, he crammed them into his pockets.
“I imagine you want to see your dad?”
He sharply exhaled. “No. Hell, no.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Peg said you need me.”
She chewed on that for a moment, then shook her head. “I needed you when Jim died, too. Where were you then?”
“Aw, come on, Mill... You know this is complicated.” Skimming his hands over his buzz-cut hair, he turned away from her and sighed. “Got any coffee?”
“Sure.”
He followed her into the kitchen, momentarily distracted by the womanly sway of her hips. Two kids had changed her body, but for the better. He liked her with a little meat on her bones—not that it was his place to assess such a thing. She’d always been—would always be—his brother’s girl.
She handed him a steaming mug.
He took a sip, only to blanch. “You always did make awful coffee. Good to see that hasn’t changed.”
Her faint smile didn’t reach blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“In the flesh.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Long as you need me.” Or at least until his dad regained his faculties enough to kick him out again. To this day, his father’s hatred still burned, but the worst part of all was that Cooper didn’t blame him. Hell, the whole reason he worked himself so damned hard during the day was so exhaustion granted some small measure of peace at night.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she noted from behind her own mug. “I always could see the gears working in your mind.”
“Yeah?” He dumped his coffee down the drain then started making a fresh pot. “Tell me, swami, what am I thinking?”
“About her.” She crept up behind him, killing him when she slipped her arms around his waist for a desperately needed, but undeserved hug. Her kindness made it impossible to breathe, to think, to understand that after all this time, why he was even here. “It’s okay, Coop.” She rested her forehead between his shoulder blades. Her warm exhalations sent shock waves through his T-shirt then radiating across his back. “I mean, obviously it’s not okay, but you have to let it go. Your mom was so kind. She’d hate seeing you this way.”
A dozen years’
